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There
comes a time in every child’s life when they realize they want to be
independent. This is normally a good thing. It is. I know it’s hard to take the
training wheels off, so to speak, but it happens eventually. As a parent,
however, you need to decide when independence is a good thing or when you
should press down on the brakes and halt any situations from getting out of
control.

I like
sleep. Those few extra minutes in the morning are usually much desired and much
needed. If you’ve stayed up late the night before, worked long hours, or gotten
up twenty times to assure your child there are, in fact, no monsters under the
bed, pushing the snooze button is a must.

I
regularly press the snooze button. And I wish for five more minutes of sleep.
But my son dutifully comes in each morning, asks if I need, “more minutes,” to
which I always reply with a groggy, slightly slurred, “Yes.” I’m not a morning
person. And anyone who knows me knows that I loathe the early mornings that so
often accompany parenthood.

Most
often my son, if the TV is left on the cartoon channel, will retreat from my
bedroom and allow me those few extra minutes of sleep. He’ll watch a show until
he decides he cannot possibly go an extra minute without food. He’ll come back
to my bedside, assert his dominance as a child in need of sustenance, to which
I’ll have to call my dreams and my peace and quiet done for the day.

However,
it’s another matter entirely when instead of getting a morning wakeup call to
put on my chef hat and prepare a breakfast with all the food groups, I get
told, “Mom! Mom, I’m making waffles. Do you want any?”

My
heart stopped. I looked at my son through hooded eyes, asked if he’d repeat
what he’d just said only to listen to the key factors of the sentence. “I’m making waffles.” It wasn’t, “Can you
make waffles.” Or “I want waffles.” Or even, “Get your lazy butt out of bed and
fix me some breakfast.” The key words in my son’s sentence were the fact that
he was making himself waffles. At
three years old my son felt that he was independent enough to get the toaster
out of the appliance garage, (yes, I have an appliance garage!) plug the device
in, grab the waffles from the freezer and begin cooking himself breakfast.

Of
course, naturally, my next step was to bolt up, throw the covers off and rush
towards the kitchen. I expected there to be smoke billowing from the toaster. I
cursed the fact that perhaps my smoke detector was out of batteries, or I
expected that maybe I was over reacting, that I had misunderstood my three year
old, instead finding a plate of frozen waffles on the table.

But no.
As I reached the kitchen, heart pounding, hands sweaty and fear in my eyes, the
toaster popped. Up shot perfectly toasted waffles, a shade of golden brown that
had my mouth watering instantly. Neatly placed beside were plates, forks and
napkins and the syrup.

I
wasn’t sure if I should cry from the stress. Feel proud and tear at the sight
of my son making himself breakfast. Even thank him for being polite enough to
offer to make me my own batch of golden brown waffles. Either way, once the
adrenaline coursing through my veins began to dissipate, I needed to decide how
to move passed the event. I needed to decide if my son was independent enough
or not to work a toaster.

I
decided at three, he wasn’t. I thanked him for the waffles. I poured the syrup,
cutting up his breakfast and had to explain that though he hadn’t exactly done
anything wrong—he argued that I’d never told him he couldn’t work a
toaster—that from now on I’d be the only waffle making chef in the house. Sure,
I didn’t tell him I had nearly had a heart attack—that was beside the point. I
needed to explain that he was still my baby. That as a mother it was my job,
until he was old enough, to make the waffles, cut them up and serve them. Of
course, what I got back was, “When will I be old enough?”

“Not
today. Not tomorrow, and not for a very long time.”

I
wasn’t ready to take the training wheels off that day. Three is a little young
to be making waffles, working a toaster and being independent, but I also
wouldn’t realize then that making waffles was just the start of my sons need to
be independent.

*Truth be told this happened a few years ago and my son, now six, does have the appropriate certification to operate the toaster :)*